Vallance trails R&D fund to support ‘mission-led’ government

The UK government is looking at using research and development spending to support its “mission-led” approach to policymaking, with funding likely to be made available to support projects that further these goals, Lord Vallance of Balham has said.

The science minister told the Labour Party conference that he favoured a more focused and targeted approach to research spending, without neglecting the general “curiosity-driven” work that may prove vital further down the line.

Lord Vallance said the government was actively considering creating a fund for projects focused on furthering Labour’s five “missions”: clean energy, growth, the NHS, equality of opportunity and tackling crime.

Outlining how such a fund could work he said that a “mission board” could define the “three, four or five things that if only they knew the answer to, if only they could get the technology advance, it would be a massive boost to that mission”.

“We then need to be agile and say if that’s the problem, here’s a fund that you can apply imaginatively to companies, academia, charities or whatever to try to answer that question or accelerate that technology.”

Lord Vallance said such a system would “really change the way we think about using R&D to further government ambition” and “change the thinking inside government”.

He said he agreed with Lord Mandelson, who recently wrote in the Financial Times that research money should be focused on specific areas of expertise.

“You don’t get very far by going very slowly across a broad front,” said Lord Vallance. “We need to be prepared to make choices and we need to back those choices at scale.”

But he said, “a bit of a funding must absolutely go to people doing curiosity-driven work that frankly I don’t know or understand at the moment, but they just need to do that, because it is going to be important in the future”.

Reflecting on the process of appointing a new chief executive of UK Research and Innovation after he reopened the process started under the previous Conservative administration, Lord Vallance said it was a “really, really important appointment” and a “huge opportunity to drive innovation in the country”.

Lord Vallance said science, technology and innovation needed to be “pervasive” across all of government and said since taking on the role after the July general election he had been struck by the willingness of ministers across departments to work with his team.

Asked what he felt he could achieve as a minister that he hadn’t been able to do as the country’s chief scientific adviser, Lord Vallance said it had been a “simple” decision to go back into government.

“I thought if you are given a chance to make a difference, and I believe this is a chance to make a difference, and you say no then you’ve got to shut up. And I didn’t feel like shutting up.”

Peter Kyle, the science secretary, said Lord Vallance had made the decision to accept the role “before leaving the room” and joked that the scientist, a former president of research and development at pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, was a rare of example of someone who had earned less the more successful they had become in their career.

“It is a hell of a thing to have had the career he has had and to go into government as a minister knowing all and having seen up front what going into politics does to people, to families, to lifestyles because of the workload and all the rest of it…we should be extremely grateful he has made this leap into government,” said Mr Kyle.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com